Residents in one of Phoenix’s most heavily policed precincts distrust, fear police in their immigrant community
A mural of James Porter Garcia in Phoenix on April 23, 2025. Garcia was shot and killed by Phoenix police in 2020. The mural was completed by Poder in Action, a progressive civic group that has sponsored other murals in the Phoenix area in collaboration with families of police violence victims. (Photo by Alessandra De Zubeldia/Howard Center for Investigative Journalism)
Evelyn De León heard police officers yelling from outside her house on a winding residential Maryvale street on a Friday afternoon in early January.
Fear seeped into her as she recalled the moment when, two years earlier, she stared down the barrels of Phoenix police officers’ handguns.
Not again, she thought.
De León ran to her living room window that faces the house across the street from her front door. There, she saw several Phoenix police officers and their vehicles. She realized that, this time, they weren’t trying to get into her house.
She pulled out her cellphone and hit record – just in case.
Through her window, she saw a shirtless man on her neighbor’s roof, lifting his arms in surrender. His submission was met with shots from some sort of weapons fired by multiple officers. As he moved closer to the edge of the roof, where officers commanded him to go, he was hit again with what she believed were rubber bullets.
He rolled off the roof, fell to the ground and was surrounded by officers.
One week later, De León learned that the man on the roof, who police identified as a fugitive wanted in connection with an armed robbery, had died after his arrest. Police said Turrell Clay had also violated his parole by leaving California to visit Phoenix. The shots De León said she saw weren’t rubber bullets – they were plastic batons fired from launcher weapons used by Phoenix police.
Reporters for the Howard Center for Investigative Journalism interviewed De León about what she saw outside her living room window a month after the incident.
Police encounters such as the one De León witnessed occur regularly in Maryvale, the densest of Phoenix’s 15 urban villages.
Phoenix police officers responding to incidents in the Maryvale Estrella Mountain Precinct used force, on average, at least once every other day over the past seven years, the highest of any precinct, according to a Howard Center analysis of police data.
From 2017 to 2024, about one in every five incidents that involved a Phoenix police officer shooting at a civilian took place in the Maryvale precinct, the second highest of any precinct, according to the Howard Center’s analysis.
In July 2020, Phoenix began tracking instances when officers pointed their guns at people. According to that data through 2024, officers were in Maryvale in more than a quarter of the times they pointed a gun at someone. That was the highest frequency of anywhere in Phoenix.
The Howard Center spent months interviewing residents and leaders in Maryvale to learn what they think about policing in their community.
They said they want to count on Phoenix police to keep their streets safe for themselves and their children, but often fear engaging with them.
Some, like De León, recounted personal experiences that left them disillusioned or traumatized. Others said they felt targeted because of their ethnic background. Some simply said they didn’t feel like the Phoenix Police Department listened.
Cultural differences and language barriers in the heavily Hispanic community exacerbate tensions with police, the Howard Center learned. Deportation fears under the Trump administration have recently added a new layer of suspicion toward law enforcement, residents said.
In written responses to questions from the Howard Center, the department said precinct officers and leaders regularly engage with residents at community meetings, block watches and special events, and that it partners with parents, families and young people to “explore solutions to social issues together.”
Precinct residents responding to a survey about their interactions with officers rated their experiences 4.31 on a scale of 5, the department said. The survey covered August to December 2024.
Regarding use-of-force incidents in the precinct, the department cautioned that there were other factors to consider, such as the number of calls for service, reports of violent crimes and direct interactions with the public.
The Maryvale Estrella precinct responds to about 20% of all calls and 20% of all violent crime reports in the city, the department said.
Maricopa County Constable Denice Garcia poses with a mural of her son, James Porter Garcia, in Phoenix on April 23, 2025. Her son was shot and killed by Phoenix police in 2020. (Photo by Alessandra De Zubeldia/Howard Center for Investigative Journalism)
Broken trust with Phoenix police
As the Maricopa County constable for the Maryvale precinct, Denice Garcia’s duties include executing evictions, serving orders of protection and providing judicial security. She is also the board president for Cartwright School District 83, where she first served in 2012.
Garcia said she becomes unsettled whenever she sees Phoenix police, or even hears police sirens. Her mistrust is deeply personal.
Selfie of James Porter Garcia, who was shot and killed by Phoenix police in 2020. (Photo courtesy of Denice Garcia)
In 2020, police shot and killed her son, James Porter Garcia, while he was sitting in a parked car in a Maryvale driveway. Officers were searching for a suspect in a stabbing who had been reported at the house where James Porter Garcia was parked. Although he did not match the suspect’s description, officers approached him as part of the investigation.
The case was one of many the U.S. Department of Justice included in its 2024 report documenting unreasonable deadly force by Phoenix police. In May, the DOJ under the Trump administration retracted the department’s investigation into the Phoenix Police Department and retracted or closed investigations into five others. The department also moved to dismiss lawsuits against Louisville and Minneapolis.
“The trust that I once had, I no longer have,” Garcia said.
Garcia sued the officers who shot her son and lost in a federal court in Arizona when the judge ruled the officers were entitled to immunity. An appeal is pending in the U. S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.
Since her son’s death, Garcia made it her mission to overhaul the police system that she believes failed her son and continues to fail others.
“Show people that you really do care,” she said. “Lend a helping hand. Get out of your car and talk to [unhoused people]. Stop at the park, talk to the kids. Change that narrative … do what they signed up to do – serve and protect.”
James Porter Garcia at about 12 years old. Garcia was shot and killed by Phoenix police in 2020 at the age of 28. (Photo courtesy of Denice Garcia)
Garcia faces the daily possibility of interacting with the officers who killed her son because she still relies on them as a member of the neighborhood. That possibility was realized in January, when one of the officers responded to a missing person report she filed.
“What kind of sense does that make?” she asked.
The Police Department, in response to a complaint she submitted about the incident, informed her that the officer had not violated any departmental policies by responding to her call, according to Garcia, and that the officer and his superiors were made aware of her concerns about the incident.
Despite the trauma and grief she carries, Garcia said she sees a future in which she could trust Phoenix police again, but only if they embrace true reform.
“I would be able to start building that trust if I saw that they were mandated to participate in de-escalation, if they were mandated to be a part of more training,” as well as crisis intervention, she said.
In mid-February, the Phoenix Police Department implemented new, more detailed use-of-force policies after a year spent training officers on the new directives. Under the new policies, the use of force must be necessary and proportional in addition to the previous standard of being reasonable.
Maricopa County Constable Denice Garcia stands next to a mural depicting her son, James Porter Garcia, on Indian School Road and 55th Avenue in Phoenix on April 23, 2025. Her son was shot and killed by Phoenix police in 2020. (Photo by Alessandra De Zubeldia/Howard Center for Investigative Journalism)
Maryvale: Hope and fear
The Maryvale community is situated in west Phoenix, and encompasses the area southwest of Grand Avenue and north of McDowell Road and Interstate 10.
Settled as a largely white community of modest homes after World War II, Maryvale began a demographic shift in the 1980s that transformed it into the largest Hispanic neighborhood in the city.
Today, more than three-quarters of Maryvale’s roughly 230,000 residents are Hispanic, the highest concentration of Hispanic residents anywhere in the city. White and Black residents make up less than 20% of Maryvale’s population. Neighboring Estrella Village has the second highest number of Hispanic residents, according to data from the Maricopa Association of Governments.
Phoenix City Councilmember Betty Guardado, a Hispanic resident of Maryvale for over a decade, represents District 5, which covers a large portion of the community. She has championed small businesses, unions,economic growth and neighborhood beautification. She is one of four members of the council’s Public Safety and Justice subcommittee.
Guardado declined the Howard Center’s request for an interview about policing in her district.
Howard Center reporters found many Maryvale residents eager to talk about their community.
Louisiana Borbon, a 19-year-old Hispanic woman, attends Estrella Mountain Community College in the nearby city of Avondale and works to organize leadership opportunities for young people through the Maryvale Youth Leadership Program.
“I think we have a really great sense of community,” she said. “Everyone is in the same circle, everyone knows each other, and everyone is really willing to support and help one another.”
She points to the abundance of small businesses and neighborhood recreation centers like the Watts Family YMCA Maryvale as the beating heart of the area.
Louisiana Borbon, 19, stands near the basin at 63rd Avenue and Indian School Road in the Maryvale neighborhood of Phoenix on April 25, 2025. She said she hopes more community events can be held there. (Photo by L. M. Boyd/Howard Center for Investigative Journalism)
But it’s not perfect. Maryvale fights against many negative stereotypes, she said.
Borbon listed rising homelessness, illicit drug abuse and speeding as the primary quality of life issues in Maryvale.
Still, for her and many of her neighbors, calling Phoenix police isn’t a reflex when in danger. She would call 911 for EMT but not for police, she said.
“A lot of people [in Maryvale] tend to be pretty, like, afraid of the police, especially given that it’s such a high population of immigrant people,” Borbon said. “I’ve met a couple people who are so scared they can’t leave their houses.”
Profiling
When members of Maryvale’s Islamic community have negative encounters with Phoenix police, they often end up seeing Martín Quezada, civil rights director for the Arizona office of the Council on American-Islamic Relations and a former state lawmaker.
“One of the biggest concerns that we have is that the community is afraid of their interactions with law enforcement,” Quezada said. “They are treated differently when they interact with law enforcement … not just because of their Islamic background but just people of color in general.”
People of color are more likely to get pulled over by police, and the interaction between the police is different during traffic stops, he said.
“It is more tense, it’s more accusatory, it is more suspicious,” Quezada said.
Martín Quezada, civil rights director for the Arizona office of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, speaks at Arizona State University’s downtown Phoenix campus on April 22, 2025. (Photo by Moses Havyarimana/Howard Center for Investigative Journalism)
The DOJ said in its 2024 report that Phoenix police cited and arrested people for lower level crimes such as drug and alcohol offenses in non-white areas at four times the rate in predominantly white neighborhoods.
Crimes go unreported when people have had bad experiences with police, Quezada said.
“We’ve heard this from the Latino community,” he said. “When they feel like they can’t trust law enforcement because they’re afraid that their immigration status may be questioned, they are not going to report crimes.”
Fears of deportation
Wendy Ruiz, who has lived in Maryvale for most of her young life, served as a community champion for Arizona State University’s Maryvale One Square Mile Initiative, which tackles social welfare issues there.
Many families, including hers, Ruiz said, carry the burden of their immigration status and racial profiling.
“My parents grew up undocumented, and we never wanted, like, any interactions with the police for that reason,” she said.
Wendy Ruiz poses for a photo at Maryvale Community Center in Phoenix on May 7, 2025. (Photo by Alessandra De Zubeldia/Howard Center for Investigative Journalism)
According to Ruiz, a decade ago, one of her family members was deported after a police identified her as undocumented during a traffic stop.
“People from other families have come to tell my family that they were pulled over by the police just due to the color of their skin,” Ruiz said.
Without reform, Ruiz believes it will be impossible to build trust and collaboration between Phoenix police and Maryvale residents.
When officers aren’t held accountable for excessive use of force, she said, it sends a message across the department that such behavior is not only tolerated, but permissible.
“How do we expect to believe that if something [bad] happens,” Ruiz said, “we would get justice?”
While the Police Department has found some officer-involved shootings outside of departmental policy, the Maricopa County Attorney’s Office has reviewed nearly 200 shootings from 2017 to 2024 and found every shooting except one justified under Arizona law. A second case is pending.
For Ruiz, rebuilding trust starts with officers making a consistent and genuine effort to relate to the people they serve, such as learning the community’s language and culture, she said.
“If you don’t understand a community, how are you serving them?” Ruiz added. And in situations where police might use force, those language and cultural barriers can “create a lot of harm.
She said she wants police officers to prove they are on the community’s side.
“Because we shouldn’t be feeling like … they’re against us,” she said.
The department outlined its position on immigrants and working with U.S. immigration agencies in a statement to the Howard Center:
“The Phoenix Police Department’s policy and practices surrounding immigration violations remain the same,” it said. “Our priority is to ensure the safety of our community by answering calls for service and focusing on preventing and reducing crime. We are not a border city, and we intend to let the federal government deal with border issues.”
Maryvale High School’s Junior Reserve Officer Training Corp color guard members stow the American flag after performing a ceremony to commemorate the completion of phase three of the Grand Canalscape project on March 29, 2025. (Photo by Owen Alfonso/Howard Center for Investigative Journalism)
Community policing
Jennifer Rouse, a member of the Maryvale Estrella Mountain Community Alliance, which provides space for residents to voice concerns to the precinct’s community action officers, believes more neighborhoods need to form block watches. These would open direct lines of communication with police officers and facilitate reporting crimes, she said.
“People are being conditioned to not trust the police because of the national politics right now,” she said. “People are being told that the police are going to deport them … even if they are naturalized.”
Neighborhoods become less safe when people are afraid, she added.
Rouse said that a ride-along with officers 16 years ago changed her perception about how policing works. At that time, she was frustrated that her calls for service weren’t being taken seriously, she said.
During her ride-along, the officer explained that there were car accidents, robberies and violent crimes happening at the same time as her own calls to Phoenix police, and they took a higher priority than hers.
Aside from more involvement from the community, Rouse said police need help reaching predominantly Spanish-speaking neighborhoods.
“That’s where we feel a lot of the block watches may need that bridge to the police officers,” she said. “They need that comfort level that they’re just not getting.”
Having more officers who speak Spanish would help, Rouse said. Something as simple as placing block watch signs in Spanish would be a start, she added.
Roughly one in five Phoenix police officers are certified in Spanish, according to the department. The department said it doesn’t track how many Spanish-certified officers are assigned to the Maryvale Estrella Mountain Precinct due to frequent changes in staffing and assignments.
Residents gather at the Maryvale Mercado in front of the Maryvale Community Center to support local businesses on March 29, 2025. (Photo by Owen Alfonso/Howard Center for Investigative Journalism)
Police questioning
Felix Moran doesn’t speak about Maryvale – he speaks from it. A Maryvale local and a community activist,Moran has seen firsthand the complex relationship between Maryvale residents and Phoenix police.
Moran doesn’t shy away from his past. He had run-ins with the police in his youth and spent time in prison. Now, he’s a dedicated Maryvale booster, striving to empower the next generation through the intersection of the arts and sciences. Recently, he helped spearhead Maryvale’s Grand Canalscape beautification project that decorated the canal with hand-painted murals.
Despite his years of community building and forging relationships with Maryvale leaders, Moran believes law enforcement still regards him as a potential threat.
Earlier this year, Moran attended a community cleanup. He wore dark clothes that he didn’t mind getting dirty and a T-shirt that exposed his tattooed arm. It was early on a brisk morning in Maryvale and, like the other volunteers, he carried a trash bag.
During the event, Moran said that he chatted with the event organizer. Police officers were also present, and at one point, he even approached a few to ask if they knew whether the public restrooms were open.
But their exchange didn’t end there. Later during the cleanup, the officers approached him, he said.
“They asked me, like, what am I doing here? Do I know the people at the event?”
Moran wondered what about him, picking up trash alongside volunteers at an early-morning community clean-up event, drew the officers’ attention.
“Do I really look like a suspicious person? Like, I don’t think I do,” Moran said, while adding that the tattoos on his arm, most of which he got done in prison, may have contributed to their judgment.
Despite those experiences, Moran hasn’t backed away from the divide between law enforcement and the people of Maryvale. Instead, he’s leaned in by trying to understand the perspective of those on the other side of the badge.
“Are they also getting mental health training workshops?” he asked. “Are they learning about mental health and how are they perceiving it when they see someone who’s distressed and going through something?”
The path forward, in Moran’s eyes, lies in creating spaces where trust can begin to form.
Coffee with police
A group of parents huddled under a ramada at El Oso Park in Maryvale, bundled up on a chilly February morning. They passed around café de olla, a traditional Mexican beverage made with cinnamon, piloncillo and other spices. Trays of chocolate chip, M&M and oatmeal cookies lined the picnic table.
Four police officers with the Maryvale Estrella Mountain Precinct’s Community Action Squad stood across from members of the Estrella Super Moms Block Watch.
The block watch group, which started in 2012, focuses on improving education for Maryvale students by advocating for better resources in schools, extracurricular activities and community safety.
Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, both groups met nearly every month to discuss community concerns and questions. Since the pandemic, meetings have become less frequent.
All the group’s members are mothers to children and teenagers who attend Maryvale schools. Many of them only speak Spanish.
Members of Estrella Super Moms Block Watch and Maryvale Estrella Mountain Precinct’s Community Action Squad officers pose for a photo at El Oso Park in Phoenix after discussing community concerns about deportation on Feb. 12, 2025. (Photo courtesy of Rosa Menjivar/Howard Center for Investigative Journalism)
That morning, the Super Moms were eager to speak with Maryvale officers about the community’s rising fears of deportation.
Officer David Torres served as the primary translator between the moms and the other officers, with some translations provided by Super Moms leader Rosa Menjivar.
The officers assured the Super Moms that the department does not collaborate with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement to carry out deportations and that the new administration’s immigration policies only target criminals.
However, one community member, Elizabeth Moreno, raised a different concern. She recalled an incident 10 years ago when she was in a fender bender with a school bus in Maryvale. When an officer arrived, she tried to explain in broken English what had happened. But the officer waved her off.
“I don’t understand you. I don’t understand you,” the officer told her, according to Moreno’s recounting.
Speaking in Spanish, Moreno explained to the group in the park that she wished that the officer at the collision scene had made more of an effort to understand her. Moreno’s concern, however, was once again lost in translation, she said.
“The fact that officers can’t speak Spanish doesn’t necessarily mean they’re racist,” said Officer Christopher Gallegos.
Looking back on that meeting with officers, Moreno later said she was unsure how the conversation turned to one about racism and felt that her message, again, had not been truly heard.
Moreno said she has also had great interactions with police officers in Maryvale who have shown a willingness to understand the community – but she wants to see more of that throughout the department.
Torres explained the emotional toll that officers withstand and how it can inform their approach on the job.
“Many [officers] basically go from call, to call, to call. They can go from a fight and the next call could be an accident and in the previous fight someone might’ve been stabbed or shot,” he said.
While Moreno said she recognizes that law enforcement jobs are not easy, she believes that accountability for their behavior on the job is still necessary.
“I think that really knowing the community they serve [is important] … I think we’re missing a lot of empathy,” Moreno said.
The Phoenix Police Department did not respond to a request from the Howard Center seeking interviews with police leadership in the Maryvale precinct to discuss community policing concerns.
‘Open the door!’
De León, the resident who saw Turrell Clay’s arrest unfold, vividly recalled the fear she felt two years ago when police burst into her home.
She had been tending to plants in the backyard when she heard yelling from the front of her house, she said. She heard her home’s address number being screamed repeatedly, she said.
“Open the door!” she heard someone yell.
De León tensed up, she recalled. She was alone with her young son, but the yelling continued, she said. She cautiously started to make her way to the front of the property, only to be met with police officers who had entered through her home’s side gate. She said they were pointing their guns at her and yelling in English, which she didn’t understand and doesn’t speak.
De León froze. They searched her house, inspecting every room with their firearms drawn. She didn’t know what was happening.
“They intimidated me,” she said. “I was scared and, well, I opened the door for them.”
The officers were looking for the owner of an abandoned car parked on the street in front of her house, she said. The owner was suspected to be involved in a kidnapping, De León later learned from one of the officers who spoke some Spanish. She said she told them she knew nothing about the car and that it had been abandoned for some time.
The officers left after searching De León’s house, she said, but the psychological damage remained. Fear had settled within her, and she said her home no longer felt as safe as it did before the incident.
And the experience colored her faith in Phoenix police.
“It’s in vain to call them or ask for help,” she said. “Trucks have been stolen, machines have been stolen, and they just say, ‘Well, put cameras up,’” De León said when asked if she would call police to report a crime.
“To be honest, we just accept these things.” De León added. “Because we’re immigrants.”